


The Night Of

by Vituperative_cupcakes



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Onesided Attraction, let my murdering trashbaby find romance!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 14:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8448916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vituperative_cupcakes/pseuds/Vituperative_cupcakes
Summary: Oswald waits for Edward to come to dinner
and waits





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just here to break your hearts

The first hour? Oswald wasn’t even worried. Edward was habitually punctual, true, but he had probably lost track of time selecting exactly the right wine to go with dinner. Oswald passed the time speaking to an empty chair, imagining Edward smiling back at him.

The second hour. Doubt set in. Maybe he had misremembered the time. Maybe dinner wasn’t that important to Edward. Maybe Edward had only agreed to dinner because he pitied Oswald. Maybe Oswald really was worth nothing after all, just like he’d always been told.

The third hour, fury came bubbling up. Who the hell did Edward think he was? He was mayor Cobblepot. MAYOR. You don’t keep the mayor waiting, not ever. Was this a glimpse into the future of their relationship? Edward slacking off because he thought he could walk all over him? Well, think again! Edward had quite a tongue-lashing awaiting him when he showed up.

Hour four. The candles burned down. Oswald stared into the dark. Remorse set in. Edward had done so much for him already. Perhaps a dinner was asking too much. Oswald chided himself for thinking so cruelly of the man who had single-handedly proved that he had worth beyond wealth. He was...busy, probably. Some clerical matter that kept him. No one knew better than Oswald how much Edward hated disorder. It was important. More important than dinner.

Five hours after dinner was supposed to have started, two familiar aches set in. One was hunger. The stab in his stomach reminded him of a threadbare childhood, of pitiful lunches swiped from his hands by bullies. It reminded him of how tenuous power was, how he was always inches away from the pavement. The second ache was familiarity. It hurt worse.

Six hours. Oswald nodded off at the table. His cheek had an impression of the soup spoon when the maid finally roused his from a stupor. For a moment, when he looked at the clock, he was disoriented enough that he thought it was really early afternoon, and he had dreamed of waiting for Edward. But no, the windows were dark. Oswald went to his too-big bed and did not fall asleep.

Ten hours after the dinner that never was. Oswald slipped off to sleep like a child falling off a pier into dark waters. 

His dream was a double funeral. His mother and father, side by side in death. His step family, Grace and her children, sobbing crocodile tears. Oswald stared down at his parents, impossibly bereft. A warm hand alighted on his shoulder.

Oswald looked up to see Edward smiling warmly, garbed in a pastor’s gown.

_ “We should really get going,” _ he said, his words in that strange, echoey dream-tone.

Oswald wanted to ask whether he meant go as in leave, or go as in get on with things, but his throat closed up with grief. He wanted things to stay where they were if moving forward meant losing everything. He grabbed double fistfuls of dark cloth, trying to draw Edward into him.

When he woke, he was gripping the comforter so hard his hands ached.

Morning. Who knows how many hours? Oswald moved slowly, head aching. He really, really didn’t want to see or speak to anyone. But on the way to get an aspirin and orange juice, Oswald saw the table with the settings neatly cleared away. He asked after Edward. He learned Edward was not at the office. Edward was not anywhere in his kingdom.

And true panic set in.

He was on the phone, vowing to use every bit of his manpower if only it means he gets to see Edward again, when the man himself walked in. Smiling like nothing was wrong. Smiling like everything wasn’t wrong. He opened his mouth and sent a poison barb deep into Oswald’s heart. It lodged somewhere beneath the wound made by his mother’s death, into a place that until now he thought impermeable.

Oswald twisted a smile onto his face.

And began planning Edward’s undoing.


End file.
